Mr Trump will be attending the official reopening of his golf course in Scotland PA Donald Trump has brought his plans to visit the UK forward to the day before the EU referendum.
The presumptive Republican nominee will travel to Scotland on 22 June to celebrate the reopening of his Trump Turnberry hotel.
Mr Trump had originally announced he would visit the UK on 24 June, the same day as the result of the EU referendum is announced.

(JTA) — Google has removed an app that allowed users to surreptitiously identify Jews online after a tech website brought the tool to widespread media attention and spurred a backlash.
Coincidence Detector, the innocuous name of the Google Chrome internet browser extension created by a user identified as “altrightmedia,” enclosed names that its algorithm deemed Jewish in triple parentheses. The symbol — called an “(((echo)))” — allows white nationalists and neo-Nazis to more easily aim their anti-Semitic vitriol.
The extension was exposed Thursday in an article on the tech website Mic by two reporters who had been targets of anti-Semitic harassment online. Google confirmed that evening that it had removed the extension from the Chrome Web Store, citing violation of its hate speech policy, which forbids “promotions of hate or incitement of violence.”Click here for the full storyFrom Russia Today

Knesset upholds 2-year jail term for Jewish couples who don’t choose an approved rabbi to conduct their weddings

By Amanda Borschel-Dan June 2, 2016, 3:58 pm
There are criminals sitting in the Israeli Knesset: legislators who have either performed weddings outside the state’s religious authority, or who have personally been married in such ceremonies.
The Jewish state is one of the few places in the world where it is illegal — with a potential jail term of two years — for Jewish couples to marry as they wish.

This was confirmed on Wednesday when a proposed law amendment which would decriminalize marriages performed outside the auspices of the Israeli chief rabbinate was shot down in a 32-25 vote in the Knesset.
Calling the existing law “scandalous,” Yesh Atid MK Aliza Lavie, who proposed the amendment, said it “opens a door so that tomorrow the state can jail anyone who won’t go to the mikveh [ritual bath], or who won’t have their sons undergo a brit milah [circumcision].”
Lavie’s proposed law would maintain the criminal aspect of weddings performed without registering the marriage. However, instead of a jail term, the couples — and those who perform their weddings — would face a fine.Click here for the full storyFrom The Independent

After the Chilcot report, we’ll hear the New Testament – the gospel according to Saint Tony

It may not be a written text, more a collection of stories handed down by apostles, generation after generation, only later formed into a codex

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, pictured addressing British troops in October 2001 Getty

So, Sir John Chilcot’s report is going to be “four times as long as War and Peace”, is it? My weariness comes not with the cliché, credited to the usual tiresome “officials”, never mind the insult to poor old Tolstoy. The implication is that the Russian novel is so massive, its characters so many, its historical sweep so vast, its very length so awesome, that we can scarcely grasp its importance. But it’s the wrong book.
True, Saddam idolised a Russian leader (Stalin), but there were no Napoleons in Iraq, whatever Generals Petraeus and McCrystal might think.
We could, perhaps, turn to Tolstoy’s forgotten little masterpiece Hadji Murat, inspired by the author’s experience as a soldier in what is now Chechnya – a novel whose Muslim separatist rebel hero ends up, naturally enough, getting his head chopped off, in this case by some very angry Russian soldiers. But that’s really only a short story.

Ankara recalls its ambassador in protest after Berlin vote on death of 1.5 million Armenians during World War I

By Hui Min NEO June 2, 2016, 3:26 pmLawmakers vote to recognize the Armenian genocide after a debate during the 173rd sitting of the Bundestag, the German lower house of parliament, Berlin, June 2, 2016. (AFP/ODD ANDERSEN)

BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — German lawmakers passed a resolution Thursday recognizing the World War I massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces as genocide, drawing a furious rebuke from Turkey which called it a “historic mistake.”
Ankara later recalled its ambassador to Germany in protest at the resolution.

Only one MP voted against and another abstained, as parliament approved overwhelmingly by a show of hands the resolution titled “Remembrance and commemoration of the genocide of Armenians and other Christian minorities in 1915 and 1916.”
In the public gallery of the Bundestag, people held up banners saying “thank you” as the parliamentary speaker announced the result of the vote to applause.
Armenia Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian praised the decision as “Germany’s valuable contribution not only to the international recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide, but also to the universal fight for the prevention of genocides, crimes against humanity.”Click here for the full storyFrom PressTV

Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations Bashar al-Ja’afari The Syrian ambassador to the United Nations says the sole goal of some Security Council members to raise the issue of humanitarian situation in Syria is to put pressure on Damascus and weaken its position before the next round of peace talks.
“Some members of the Security Council want to violate Syrian sovereignty and deny the role the Syrian government plays” in the fight against Daesh and in delivering aid to civilians trapped in militant-held areas, Bashar al-Ja’afari said in a statement following a Security Council session on Friday, the official SANA news agency reported.

Those Security Council member states want to “politicize the humanitarian situation in Syria, instead of stopping the terrorist tide,” he added.

The Syrian envoy further rejected claims by some members that Damascus is hindering the delivery of aid to besieged areas under terrorists’ control, adding that the Syrian government has pledged full cooperation with the UN and the Red Cross to deliver aid to all civilians “without any discrimination,” including those in hard-to-reach areas.
He went on to say that dealing with the humanitarian situation in Syria must be carried out through the Syrian government, and expressed his regret that some influential members of the council are playing a pivotal role in worsening the humanitarian situation in the Middle Eastern country.

“If it were up to some Security Council members, they would have liked to airdrop weapons, not food or humanitarian aid,” Ja’afari added.

His comments came after the council agreed in a closed-door session to formally request the Damascus government to allow airdropping food to terrorist-held areas.
“Airdrops are costly, complex and risky, but we all agree now that they are the last resort,” British Ambassador to the UN Matthew Rycroft said after the Friday session.Members of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent deliver aid boxes to the militant-held town of Douma near the Syrian capital on May 26, 2016. (AFP) Meanwhile, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says Syria has agreed to allow access for ground convoys to deliver aid to 12 besieged areas during the holy month of Ramadan later this month.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. According to a February report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the conflict has claimed the lives of some 470,000 people, injured 1.9 million others, and displaced nearly half of the country’s pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.
A ceasefire brokered by the US and Russia went into effect on February 27 in Syria, but it does not apply to the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group and al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front terrorists.Click here for the full storyFrom PressTV

Syria army advances toward Raqqah Province border: Report

Fri Jun 3, 2016 2:22PMThe Syrian army advanced further toward the border of Raqqah Province Friday with government forces currently positioned about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) away, a report says.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the government troops are supported by Russian airstrikes in the new offensive which ultimately seeks to liberate the provincial capital, Raqqah, from the control of the Takfiri Daesh terrorists.
Raqqah City has been the de facto capital of the terrorist group over the past few years. It is located about 455 kilometers (283 miles) northeast of the Syrian capital, Damascus.
The Russian airstrikes targeted positions held by Daesh in the eastern areas of Hama Province near the provincial boundary with Raqqah. Moscow has been engaged in airstrikes on Daesh positions since late September 2015 upon a request from Damascus.
The Syrian army announced the new offensive Thursday. The operation began with a move for the Athriya area of Hama. Syrian army soldiers take positions on the outskirts of Raqqah, February 19, 2016. (AFP photo) The Syrian army is entering “the race for Raqqah” with the new offensive, according to Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar.Click here for the full storyFrom The Independent

Ken Livingstone says Hitler comments are ‘factual’ as ‘1+1=2’

The former London Mayor blamed ’embittered MPs’ for branding him a Nazi apologist

Ken Livingstone has been suspended from the Labour Party after being accused of antisemitism Getty Images

Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone has described his comments about Adolf Hitler supporting Zionism as “factual” and compared them “1+1=2”.
Speaking at the Oxford Union on Wednesday, Mr Livingstone refused to apologise for his statements about the Nazi leader and blamed “embittered MPs” for branding him a Nazi apologist.
He said: “I think this has been largely manufactured by people trying to undermine Jeremy Corbyn.
“If someone says something antisemitic they will be expelled but you can’t expel someone for telling the truth.”

June 3, 2016 1:01pm
(JTA) — A court in Jerusalem extended the remand of a haredi Orthodox school supervisor from Jerusalem whose indictment for the alleged rape of two girls from his own family is reportedly eroding taboos on reporting sex crimes within his community.
The Jerusalem District Court’s decision Thursday on Naftali Maklev, 50, came two weeks after his May 18 indictment, the news site Kikar HaShabbat reported. According to Haaretz, the affair is leading to unusual developments within highly insular haredi Orthodox communities, including increased reporting of molestation and warnings to haredi schoolchildren to be wary even of adults known to them.
Maklev’s lawyer, Yehuda Fried, told Kikar his client was innocent and that a “detailed examination of the evidence will show the accusations and alleged evidence are made up.” Maklev is not accused of molesting pupils at the Jerusalem religious school for boys where he worked.
The 17-page indictment, obtained by JTA, accuses Maklev of raping his alleged victims — sisters now aged 23 and 27 — hundreds of times since they were 6 and 7, sodomizing them, performing obscene acts on them and assaulting them while telling them that the sexual contact was required by religious law, or halacha. He also is charged with attempting to perform and performing an indecent act under deceitful pretenses on a third sister, now 29, when she was 19.Click here for the full storyFrom the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Separate swim periods for women pit New York Times against city’s Orthodox

June 3, 2016 4:27pm
The New York Times newspaper being delivered to newsstands and all night deli’s starting at 5 a.m. on May, 2008, in New York City. ( Jonathan Torgovnik/Getty Images)

(JTA) — An only-in-New-York story about a public swimming pool that offered women-only swim periods for the area’s Orthodox community turned into a full-blown media firestorm when the New York Times weighed in on the subject.
The pool, located in the heavily Orthodox Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, had been offering women-only hours since the 1990s to accommodate those whose religious sensitivities forbid women and men from swimming together.
Last week, the Parks Department cancelled the women-only swim periods after an anonymous complaint was made to the city’s Commission on Human Rights, only to reverse itself following objections by Assemblyman Dov Hikind, an Orthodox politician representing the nearby Borough Park and Midwood neighborhoods.Click here for the full storyFrom The Times of Israel

Hitler quote makes it into Maine yearbook

High school issues callback for books after student references Nazi leader’s statement on sterilization

BANGOR, Maine — A high school in Maine is asking students to return yearbooks so a sticker can be affixed over a quote from Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
Bangor High School Principal Paul Butler says no one caught the offensive quote that accompanied a senior’s photo before the yearbook was printed. The student’s quote referred to one attributed to Hitler: that “anyone who sees and paints a sky green and fields blue ought to be sterilized.”

Butler called the quote “regrettable.” He said all non-distributed books were affixed with a sticker.
Last week in Pennsylvania, a school district apologized after quotes from Hitler, communist leader Joseph Stalin and an Islamic State group leader were printed in a high school yearbook.Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.Click here for the full story